


nightmare

by divinetock3



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Reader-Insert, Showers, [jason todd voice] maybe......gotham city sucks :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:03:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divinetock3/pseuds/divinetock3
Summary: jason returns to reader's apartment after a particularly stressful night.





	nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote about half of this during an anxiety attack so! kshfjdgh a lady has been Going Thru It folks, but i hope u enjoy!! i listened to a number of songs while writing but halsey's 'nightmare' has been bouncing around in my head the most. and all of frank sinatra's 'in the wee small hours' album got me thru it as well. there's a Lot of introspection in this, i went a little crazy but i love jason todd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jason comes in through the fire escape. It's risky and as he's shimmying the lock open, he knows he's putting himself in a potentially bad situation. But the downpour is clinging to his jacket and sliding like butter along the sides of his helmet and he feels like he can't breathe. Even as he shoves the window up and open, his hands are shaking. This is bad—very bad.

His feet land on the floor soundlessly. After closing the window he hovers, waiting for a scream or a clatter, but it's silent save for the TV, some black-and-white movie flickering against the carpet. As his eyes adjust to the darkness a black lump leaps down from the back of the couch and twines itself between his legs, purring loudly in the eerily still living room. He crouches and scratches the cat behind the ear. Its mouth lifts and the eyes shut, basking in the attention.

[Name] is asleep on the couch. The fluffy blanket she loves so much is tucked around her like a cocoon. He removes his helmet, tucking it under his arm, and stares at her for a long moment. The steady rise and fall of her chest is enough to ease him, at least for a few seconds. Sometimes that's all he needs.

Quietly, Jason moves around the coffee table and squats in front of her. He nudges her shoulder once, then twice, whispering her name. Her eyes open slowly and then recognition touches her dreary face. A smile pulls at her lips. "Hiya."

His smile is less happiness, more relief. Just from hearing her voice. "Hey there, sugar. Miss me?"

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she sits up. "You don't give me the chance to."

A joke. They hardly ever get to see each other. Partially because of her roommate, who he isn't even sure is or isn't here right now, and also because he's terrified that goons with targets on his back will somehow wind up on her doorstep. He visits her sparingly; even more rarely in uniform. The latter is saved for when he's truly spiraling.

Which is why, when more clarity comes to her eyes and she's truly awake, she fixes him with a strange look that is as cautious as it is caring. "Why're you here? Is everything alright?"

Jason rubs a hand up and down his neck. Habit. "Is it ever? I needed to see you."

She sits a little straighter right as the cat hops up onto the couch. The damn thing is inseparable from her. The cat—Monty is his name—butts his head against her hand until she consents to rubbing behind his ear. Like he was seconds earlier with Jason, he's a melting puddle of purrs and contentment.

"Are you ok?" she asks. Her voice has taken on that serious gravel it does on the nights like these when he's dangerously elusive and doesn't emote what's truly going on in his head.

A lot of the time, Jason just wants to forget. He says, "Yes" and then just as quickly asks, "Is your roommate home?"

The change in subject screws her head up. She blinks, then glances at the hallway behind her, as if trying to recall. "No. No, Eve is at her boyfriend's. Wh—"

"Do you mind if I shower?"

"I—" She stops petting Monty and her hand falls in her lap. She shrugs, looking lost. "Sure. But Jason—"

He's already off. It's winter, but his skin is burning up and he's a little convinced that he's actually been set on fire at some point tonight. Weirdly, he feels numb, too. It all tangles up in his bones as he turns on the water and begins undressing. Maybe the water will offer some respite, even for a short while.

She fills up the doorway not seconds later, blanket abandoned. She's wearing drawstring pajama pants and a ratty tank top. Arms crossed beneath her breasts, she stares at him as he tosses his gear about the bathroom with zero discretion. No Eve? That means he can go through the motions of his panic without worry of being heard.

Jason doesn't meet her eye, but he can practically hear the gears in her brain and the questions queuing up, one after another. She knows when he doesn't want to talk. Hopefully she acknowledges it tonight and leaves him to his own devices. It's selfish, he knows, but God sometimes he just needs to be in his head and think things over without outside influence.

The water is cool the way he wants it. It'll calm him down like the rain failed to tonight. Without another word, Jason steps in the basin and pulls the curtain shut.

As he imagined, the water is baptismal. He tips his head back and lets it beat against his chest and steady his erratic heartbeat. Even if it only helps him a little, it’s worth it. Nowadays he’s less concerned with healing, instead more focused on just the smallest and most fleeting of cures. It’s worth it for those few seconds of inner peace.

He wets his hair, then turns around and soaks his back. [Name]’s water pressure is a little softer than he’d like, but it more than gets the job done. He watches the drops squirm along his torso and down his legs as they cut up and around his scars, both new and old. Fortunately no nicks tonight, miraculously, but he’s still shaken up. There’s still scars within his skin too.

When Jason faces the shower-head, he hears the curtain get pulled back from behind him. Out of the corner of his eye he sees her, nude, stepping in. Then her arms slip around his middle and he feels the press of her against his back, a warm solidness that brings him back to Earth more than the water has been.

———————————————

Gotham’s teeth have been hanging over Jason since he was a kid. Orphaned young, a sea urchin for most of his childhood—he never knew comfort. Life was lived in fear and the first few years on the street involved a lot of running until his legs turned to jelly and his lungs felt they were going to jump from his chest. Mouth agape, acid dripping from the maw, ready to snatch him up and toss him aside just as quick. There has never been sympathy in Gotham’s veins. Especially for children.

The Red Hood has been his christening. Through the spilled blood he’s found a peace he has been searching for all his life, although it often comes at the cost of his sanity. He’s the first person to say he isn’t pieced together right. Jason knows something is wrong with him, but truthfully there’s been something wrong with him since those days on the streets. Even when he went by another name.

Being Robin wasn’t real. Jumping to the rescue, putting away the bad guy and throwing away the key—that isn’t how the real world works. At least, that’s not how Jason wants his world to work. They should suffer. He’s an angry young man and he has every damn right to be. He won’t say sorry for that. 

All the terrible, vile things done to him—is it wrong he's a little glad it happened? Don't get it wrong: Jason wants to pluck the bones from _him_ until there's nothing left to bury. But a little part of Jason is alright with being Gotham's martyred son. It turned him inside out and back again, and he's willing to be the damaged one if it means everyone else just trying to get by can sleep peacefully at night. He'll take the bullets and get his teeth kicked in if the women and children of the city aren't touched. It's more than worth it in his eyes. Another Jason shouldn't be made on those streets again.

Pulled apart and shoved back together again. Six months of it. Nobody came for him; hell, it seems Jason was forgotten completely. That's fine. He'll remember that for the rest of his life and use it to drive him forwards on the nights when he doubts his own beliefs. When he's sitting on a rooftop and wondering, _Why should I bother?_ , he'll think back to the loneliness and the fear of being trapped in that goddamn room and say, _Oh. That's why._

He met [Name] back in the Robin days. Totally incidental, but it turns out it was one of the best things to ever happen to him. A year younger than him, yet one of the wisest, most kind people he’s ever known. Like anyone else, she’s had hardships of her own. Maybe not like his, but Jason doesn’t think that in any way discounts how much they shaped her. Somehow, miraculously, she takes the misery and molds it into something resembling softness. She doesn’t let her misfortunes rule her. Jason doesn’t say it, but he thinks it makes her braver than he’ll ever be.

After he got tossed back out, shaken up and struggling to deal with newfound freedom, it was her doorstep he stumbled upon and he hasn’t looked back since. It was late at night, her tucked into his side, that he conceived of his new self, and the next day he went out and started working towards being that person.

And so he’s been following this routine. He sleeps out in dens when he can, and on nights when Eve the Roommate is gone who-cares-where Jason drops by and makes the apartment his home for those short few hours. [Name] is impossibly patient with his lifestyle and more than supportive. She grew up in Gotham too. She’s seen shit that has made her sympathetic to his cause. 

“You’re a hero, do you know that?” she whispers one night, hovering over him and pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

It's nice to hear, but being a hero isn't Jason's concern. He just wants to do _some_ thing. More than he ever did back when he donned the Robin suit.

More than anything, he’s pissed. Jason has been dealt the worst hand every time and it all comes back to this damn city. At the end of the day it isn’t money or crime or whatever else that runs through the city: it’s evilness. Wicked, disgusting poison that seeps in the ground and soaks up anything with a beating heart. He isn’t a religious man, but Jason doesn’t think it’s a far stretch to say that Gotham City is Sodom.

When things get bad he can't even get a breath of fresh air. Even the fucking atmosphere surrounding Gotham is dying. The city is sick and it's driving the citizens crazy. _They're just people, Jason_ , he was told countless times—no, they're evil incarnate, every single one of them. He isn't going to give them the chance to become people. They need to be put in the ground.

One morning, not too long ago, him and [Name] walked through the streets. He can’t even remember what for—she likely needed to pick something up from the store—but they were hand-in-hand and talking about normal things. They approached a shop window with stacks of TVs inside, all showing clips from the local news channel. A couple people milled along, some paying attention to the anchors, but most sidestepping and continuing on their way. The female anchor was mid-sentence, but it halted Jason in his tracks: “…there’s no denying he’s saving innocent lives, but should it be at the cost of human life, even if that human life is that of a murderer’s or a rapist’s?”

A muscle had ticked in Jason’s jaw. There was no doubt who they were talking about.

The male anchor, plastic grin spreading, had opened his hands and said, “Well, he’s certainly sending a message to another crusader of the city.”

The woman’s eyebrow arched. “Do you think this is all a show for Batman?”

“I think that this Red Hood fella has an agenda larger than we may ever wrap our heads around,” he answered, “and I don’t believe it’s too far-fetched to say that pissing off Batman might be high up on that list.”

Jason's a pariah. He saves, but it isn't clean. [Name] is wrong—he isn't a hero in the public's eyes. There are no calls for _his_ help, no gestures of peace from the mayor or police department. Even the newspapers and news channels can't decide what side he's on. _An agenda._ Gotham has become so distrusting that they can't even see that at the end of the day, he's eliminating the worst the city has to offer. Doesn't that count for something? Doesn't that scream who's side he's on: the people's?

No, nobody calls for the Red Hood’s aid. There’s only one hero the city seems to agree on, and Jason knows it because he still sees his damn light up in the sky every night, taunting him. 

A voice had brought him back out of his reverie: “C’mon.” [Name]’s hand caressed the inside of his wrist, calming his jumping, angry pulse. She had urged him forward and, eventually, Jason had kept walking.

———————————————

Whatever's bothering him, [Name] can feel it in his shoulders. They're broad, strong; they've made her feel protected on her worst nights. Sometimes it gets in her head what he's out there doing every night. She hears snippets on the news and even at work. Largely, she tries to avoid it or else the worry'll drive her up the walls. Then he'll come home and she sees how tall and hulking he is and it's a small respite. _He can handle himself._ Even if he wasn't physically strong, Jason could fight through a crowd on stubbornness alone. She'd never admit it—he'd get a kick out of it—but she's grateful for how willful he is.

Rumors spread easy in Gotham. It isn’t long before she hears what the Red Hood got into the night before. While she sleeps, her darling Jason is out there spilling blood on the cement and paving rivers through the streets. Sometimes she can’t help hearing details here and there and it makes her numb to imagine him doing these things when he’s only ever graced her with tenderness. But then she thinks of who it’s done to, and a swell of pride quickly replaces that doubt.

But it weighs heavy on him. There’s never an in-between: some nights she’s convinced this is Jason’s calling, that this is what he’s meant to do and this is how he’ll save the city; and other nights she knows this will be his downfall, that the more and more bodies stacked up, the more he will only deteriorate into nothingness. She doesn’t want him to become a shell. Selfishly, she wants him to stay as Jason, her boyfriend.

“Jason,” she says. It’s quiet beneath the running water, but he hears and turns. She wraps her fingers around his forearms and asks, “Can I clean you off?”

Consent and asking questions has been important with Jason from the beginning. She’s seen the scars; she knows something terrible happened to him and he’s confessed between sobs what he’s seen and what’s been done to him. It broke her heart then, and even the thought now makes her want to wreak havoc of her own. She can’t imagine how it must feel to live in that grief every hour of the day. It’s a miracle he hasn’t lost his mind.

She’s cautious with Jason. He can handle himself, but she also isn’t going to jump to conclusions without his input.

Jason nods. She’s glad. He’s come to her in worse shape—bruises, bleeding, even a gunshot—but she still wants to wash him down. Since she can’t pick through his brain and whisper sweet nothings to heal the pain, she’ll settle for slathering him in soap and praying it makes him feel at least a little better.

The soap is slippery but she holds it firm and runs it up and down his arms, from the soft underside of his veiny wrist to the swell of his bicep. She works in silence and he watches without input, letting her work her magic.

Next is his chest and stomach. Covering her hands in the soap, she rubs her short nails up and along the ridges of his torso, ignoring the sadness that threatens to disrupt her thoughts as she feels the ghost of scars come to greet her touch. An insecurity of Jason’s, one she never understood. There’s nothing to be ashamed of what he couldn’t help. It’s taken Jason a long time to realize that she doesn’t find him worthy of disgust. Even him letting her wash him there is rewarding considering their past discussions on the matter.

After rinsing him off, she grabs her shampoo bottle and, with a little smile, rubs it through his hair. She has to stand on her toes to reach the top of his head and he lays a hand on her hip to steady her. “You’re going to smell like me.”

Jason allows a snort of amusement, although his eyes are still as eerily blank as they were when he first woke her up. “Lucky me,” he says. He’s starting to look exhausted, so she hurries it up and skips the conditioner altogether. That’ll be for another time, she supposes.

Jason cuts the water. It’s freezing, standing there, and [Name] gets out first and hands him a towel. He wraps it around his waist as she finds one for herself, tucking it underneath her armpits. 

They sit on the toilet lid, her legs draped across his lap and his hand laying right above her knee as she leans against his temple. She can smell the honey shampoo in his hair and it brings a quiet smile to her lips. It’s nice knowing she’s leaving a little bit of herself on him for the next couple days. Maybe he’ll think of her when he catches a whiff on his nightly ventures.

“Thanks,” he says, “for doing that for me.”

“Of course.”

“I didn’t get to repay you.”

A hint of a smirk touches his face. Laughing, she pushes his shoulder. “Maybe next time.”

As answer, he presses a kiss to her shoulder. His arm circles around her waist and he tucks her in closer. His next kiss lands on her collarbone. She revels in the fragility he holds her with, basking in his warmth.

It isn’t often they get silent moments like this. Eve has met Jason two times, and both were an accident. Fortunately he was out of uniform, but it didn’t stop Jason from freezing up and feeling terribly out of place. After he left that first time, Eve had raised her eyebrows, apparently impressed in [Name]’s taste. She knew not to put Jason in that position again. He comes by maybe once a week, and more often than not it’s when Eve is nowhere in sight. He prefers it to be just him and her. Truthfully, so does she.

The Jason she knew before it happened was so different but so similar. The latter is what strikes her most. He held himself a little looser and he was quicker to crack jokes and laugh, but at the end of the day there’s little difference between the two. He’s always been recalcitrant. No, she wouldn’t even say there’s two Jasons; it’s the same man, only now he resides in the anger he so desperately tried to shed when he was younger.

“There was a girl tonight,” he says faraway. His eyes have gone glassy and he’s staring across to the sink. “She was on a rooftop, probably having a smoke, and some guy must’ve followed her up because he was trying to…” Jason’s voice drifts. He comes back more clearly: “By the time I got there, she was trapped—I guess he got rid of her prop in the door so she couldn’t run—and she was screaming and trying to find a way to get down before he caught her. He did, and he…he got a hold of her and shoved her off. Off of the roof, moment he saw me. By the time I realized what had happened, she had landed. Christ. She couldn’t have been more than a few years older than us. It’s like I was up there just to watch.”

And he’s shaking. The hand on her leg is thrumming with nerves, fingers tapping. “What really fucked me up was…Jesus, [Name], she looked just like you. Same height, hair, even what she was wearing looked like something you’ve got. I couldn’t think straight. I just kept seeing you and I couldn’t stop thinking about how when she died, she was alone and terrified. What were her last thoughts? What if I were there just a few seconds earlier?”

Tears mark down her cheeks. She wonders what Jason must’ve done to the man.

“She didn’t do anything. One minute she’s sitting there and the next she’s fighting to stay alive. This fucking city…It stinks. It smells bad and it clings to my skin, my clothes. It should be wiped off the damn map and forgotten forever. No history, nothing. Just rubble.”

In a surprisingly steady voice, she says, “The weight on your shoulders is getting too heavy, Jason. When will you rest?”

“I can’t. Not when this is the state of the world.”

“Jason—“

“You know this. You knew this. I think about all the people out there and I…my skin crawls. There’s no ignoring it. I’m not going to sit by like—“

He stops.

“Like who?”

“No one.”

She has a pretty good idea, but nonetheless changes the subject. “I understand, I do. This is something you need to do. But you’re my boyfriend, and I’m scared of losing you.” Her voice catches on the end, cracking like glass.

Jason snorts, not very amused. “I’m too good to get killed by those sc—“

“That’s not the way I mean it. There’s a lot more precious things to lose than your life.”

“Some would say I already have lost my mind. Normal people don’t dress up in disguises and beat up men in alleys.”

“Your words, not mine.”

His laugh is more genuine this time, but it falls short soon after. 

Silence falls. [Name] thinks about the young woman that was trying to get some peace and only found her own demise. She can’t imagine dying so young, so confused. The rage of being cut off from life so abruptly…she can’t begin to conceptualize how that must feel. Jason might have an easier time. 

She has no words, so she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

“I wish I’d done something,” he mutters, distracted. Numb.

Her hand laces through the hair at the back of his head. It’s growing out, a little untidy. She’ll have to trim it again soon. And then what? An endless cycle of being judge, jury, and executioner on Jason's end, while she continues on pretending to be oblivious and trying to be as normal as possible. 

“I think we should go to bed.”

Silently, Jason agrees. She rises from his lap and leads him out of the humid bathroom and into her bedroom. They slip nude under the covers and Jason envelopes her in his arms, almost crushingly tight, but she doesn’t say a word. He needs this right now.

Ten minutes pass before Jason, his voice strained and sad, asks, “Can you distract me? Even for a little bit.”

She lifts her head from his armpit and kisses him full on the mouth. He grasps the side of her face and as she slides atop him, their legs intertwining, she wishes she could do more for him. He deserves peace, and calm, and love. Sometimes she feels too small to give him all of it. But for now, she supposes this can be enough.


End file.
